PRINCESS Ashika, which sank off Tonga this month with 93 dead, is the latest large-scale loss of life onboard a ferry considered too unsafe to operate in the first world but somehow still good enough for a developing country.
If anything, the casualty toll was modest compared with similar incidents. Remember Joola, which capsized off Gambia in 2002, killing 1,863? Or the al Salam Boccaccio 98 casualty in Egypt four years later, resulting in 1,018 deaths?
This is a list that could be easily be extended. The common denominator is that the vessel involved has been pensioned off from service elsewhere, typically Europe or Japan, because it does not meet applicable safety standards as they have been upgraded in recent decades, after the Herald of Free Enterprise and Estonia tragedies.
But instead of being scrapped, dodgy ro-ros have frequently been sold on the cheap to poorer countries that cannot afford modern tonnage to be worked hard on domestic routes.
Yes, we know for certain that overcrowding on third-world ferries is the rule rather than the exception, and often maintenance is not of the highest order. But neither factor lets the sellers of elderly secondhand ferries off the hook.
If affluent western passengers are too scared to travel on them, is it ethical effectively to force Africans, Arabs and southeast Asians to do so? The short answer is no.
